Supes choose Hammer for commission

The appointment of James Hammer to the Police Commission was sent out of the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee Thursday.

Hammer, who is thought to be a potential District Attorney candidate, was hailed by Supervisor Chris Daly. “What [Hammer} can do is he can go into the police commission and be an immediate game changer. I think that we need an immediate game changer right now,” Daly said.

Hammer’s public safety experience includes serving as a reserve police officer, an assistant district attorney and a law professor.

The seven-member Police Commission is required to set “policy for the Police Department and to conduct disciplinary hearings on charges of police misconduct filed by the Chief of Police or Director of the Office of Citizen Complaints, impose discipline in such cases as warranted, and hear police officers’ appeals from discipline imposed by the Chief of Police,” according to the commission’s web site.

One of Hammer’s goals is to erase the backlog of disciplinary cases. “There are discipline cases right now from several years ago, not months. That’s missed up,” Hammer told the committee.